A64Pilot

Now that you say it that’s what I remember, but didn’t until you posted and jogged my memory

Me, I’d comply with the 2024 AD, which I’m already complying with if I understand it, and I’d hope everyone else is too, and Ignore the 2017 until or unless it rears it’s ugly head. I don’t think it’s going to amount to much because if it was, especially since it’s been ongoing for what 7 years and pretty much none of us have heard about it the likelihood of a rash of failures is pretty remote (in my opinion). This AD sounds to me like a CYA for I guess the FAA, or maybe Lycoming, who knows which, perhaps both? Truth is we are all just finding steel in the filter away from something much more expensive than this, and the gear worry me. We have ALL heard of cam / lifter failures, how many have heard of these bushings failing? Does insurance cover a gear up if the actuator quits? I don’t honestly know but I think maybe they don’t cover material failure or it would cover a bad cam too? So as I see it we are all flirting with disaster as it is, you either deal with it whatever way you can, or you sell. Not trying to be nasty, but Certified aviation has always been like this and no aircraft make that I know of is Immune. At least we don’t have a wing spar AD etc, but as the fleet continues to age we are likely to see more AD’s. The C-210 I had a wing spar AD to deal with and honestly I suspect failing it would condemn the airframe as I don’t know what it would cost to fix it as opposed to the value of the aircraft, no idea. But small end rod bushings ought to not be all that hard or expensive honestly, not compared to what it could be.

I’m failing to understand the Angst here? I agree I wouldn’t want a defective part in my engine, but If I understand it and I’m not saying that I’m an expert because full disclose I’m going off only what I read here, but this AD isn’t requiring anything to be done that shouldn’t already be done anyway? IE inspecting the oil filter and suction screen? It doesn’t even require it to be done by a licensed mechanic. Heck it even tells you where to go because before this AD if I found bearing material I would immediately suspect the worst and remove the engine and split the case, it could be a large money saver. How much less intrusive would you like it to be and how? Ref the I don’t know if the new ones are any better or not, again I can’t be 100% certain, but using a tool to determine if the bearing has enough interference fit screams to me that either the rod bore is oversized or the bushing undersized and not a materials defect issue. Now this thing could grow arms and legs like the crank AD did, but as it began in 2007 seemingly I think it’s unlikely to do so.

The R-1340 RPM red line is 2250, usual cruise 2000. I’m pretty sure the T-6 airshow planes are turning faster than 2250 just for the noise. How much I’m not sure but the old Thrushes ran the same motor and prop and while they were loud, they weren’t that loud.

One thing that kills the aerobatic engines is the prop is a big gyroscope, and doing all that flipping around etc is hell on the crankshaft, the lighter the prop of course the less effect so the wooden MT’s are I think very popular, and an aerobatic prop does just the opposite pitch wise from oil pressure loss, they increase pitch where out props go flat, reason is imagine running wide open at High RPM, lose oil pressure for a sec and the prop go flat, RPM would get excessive, but if it increases pitch then it loads and slows engine and it’s safer. Turbine props do the same, they got to feather at loss of oil pressure. In this video a Reno air racer loses oil pressure, prop goes flat, explodes, engine RPM goes to god know where and engine rapidly disassembles itself, listen to the audio, engine sounds like an air ratchet.

I don’t think Mooney’s props are anywhere near supersonic, because of ground clearance they are short to start with and do any of our motors turn more than 2700? What is close to supersonic is the 1340’s on like a T-6 due to length and a C-185 on floats with a “Borer” as in long prop that is turning 2850 RPM Warp drive propellors used to have an excellent tip speed calculator online, but I’m having trouble finding it, maybe someone with better search skills can?

If it’s an Overhaul and not an exchange I think your smart for doing it before you see metal in the oil, If done near TBO my experience is overhauls are far less expensive because nearly all the expensive bits are serviceable. Once one starts making metal it’s probably more cost effective to pony up the big bucks for either a zero time or factory exchange, I’ve seen field overhauls end up costing more by the time a new crank etc are purchased. I know 470’s, 520 and 550’s are essentially the same motors but I’ve always had better luck with 520’s than most 550 owners I know,,but most of my experience is with them in Cessna’s which run them hard. (300 HP)

Turbine conversions make more sense for larger aircraft. If your really serious contact Bill Hatfield at www.turbineconversions.com I’ve done quite a lot if work with Bill, he STC’d a 10,500 lb tailwheel for me and developed the cowling a military aircraft we built called the Archangel. Bill is surely very old now but he has a very good relationship with the feds and gets things done, sort of an Ag specialists but he also put a -21 Pratt in 206’s primarily as jump planes https://turbineconversions.com/conversions/turbine-206-cessna/

The ones I have experience with did, on UH-1’s, they were on the top of the engine cowling and you could hear them when you turned the battery on, wearing a helmet. But they were probably larger maybe than one put on small airplanes?

Ref cleaning switches, by all means do so as a temp measure, but be aware it’s almost always a temporary fix as most switches have some kind of plating on them and most of the time they get intermittent when this plating wears off and cleaning won’t of course replace the plating. Switches that trigger a relay so that they are only carrying a tiny amount of power last a very long time as opposed to those that carry significant amount of current due to arcing of the contacts. Then all contact cleaners are not created equal, I’ve had the best luck with Deoxit, it’s not cheap but compared to the price of these switches it’s just pennie’s. Ref are there any other approved switches? Download and read this AC ref parts substitution for antique aircraft, ALL Mooney’s are antique aircraft and this AC covers every Mooney ever made, in particular electrical parts are about the easiest to substitute, many if not nearly all are Standard Parts. So look up Standard parts, I think if you could find a switch that would work and carry the amperage then yes it’s approved. I would quote this AC in the logbook entry though. This AC has been out since 09, so 15 years? Not likely to change and surely every FAA inspector is aware of it. https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_23-27.pdf On edit, I use contact cleaner as a troubleshooting measure, if the problem goes away when I clean a switch, then it’s likely that’s the problem so I try to find a switch.

I had to go pick up someone in the C-210 years ago, pulled it out and the front tire was low so I had someone fill it up and cranked up and left after he did, when I landed the nose went down so far I was sure the nose gear had collapsed, but it was just a flat tire. I taxied off the runway, filled it up and it held air? It continued to hold air too, I figure the valve stem must have gotten cocked to the side after being filled the first time, and the person who filled it being in a hurry didn’t reinstall the valve cap. Just a guess but nothing else made sense. If you look at an aircraft valve cap, first it’s metal, but if you look inside of it you will see an O-ring, this O-ring would most probably have kept me from landing with a flat. Nitrogen in tires is silly, maybe some justification in Oleo struts, but tires it’s just a profit for someone selling you something you have no need of.

“Leaning it out” may burn carbon and fuel residue off of plugs making it so they will fire more easily, oil and or gas will allow a path to ground for the spark energy is why a “fouled” plug will not fire reliably, that and of course the compression in the cylinder also inhibits the spark, why sometimes a plug will seem to operate normally until it’s installed in the cylinder. Decent video, Auto based and of course they are trying to sell plugs and at what Auto plugs cost, why not toss them? Fuel fouling is one reason why a flooded engine is tough to start too. Anyone who used to race two strokes is very familiar with plug fouling. Trail riding I would sometimes have to stop, pull the plug soak it in gas and just burn it to get it so it would fire reliably, this didn’t always work but often did. A plug at higher power is a sort of glow plug in that it’s the hot spot in the cylinder, it’s that way to keep clean, obviously it’s a fine line getting it hot enough to stay clean, yet not so hot that it becomes a point of ignition prior to the spark

Issue with Fl is many that move down from up North that can afford it want to live on the coast in big cities, and the money there is in bizjets, not little old antique airplanes, from my limited observation more and more the little airplanes aren’t even wanted as I think they take up the space that the big money airplanes want. Fl population is expanding and assets of all types are limited. So it pretty much means that if you want a roof, especially if you want walls for your little antique, that means going inland, and if your willing to do that I’d recommend you looking into a fly in community, airpark whatever you call it. It’s not as expensive as you may think, I always thought it was out of my price range until I looked into it, and if you enjoy flying it’s a complete game changer, so much more convenient that you will fly much more often, but if you have to live near the beach, especially if you want to live in a big city and have your airplane nearby, it’s going to be tough to have a single engine piston, there I guess the idea of I’ll scrap the airplane every x number of years and buy another comes from, there just isn’t many other options. I’ve even seen PC-12’s, King Air’s etc tied down permanently or at least during “Season”. Season meaning snow bird season, not Hurricane season. It’s sad to see almost every year a Hurricane chew up airplanes tied down on the coast. I’ve heard several times, “Oh well that’s what insurance is for” As a general statement Fl is growing too fast and beginning to outstrip its infrastructure, if you buy in Fl be darn sure you check out the flood potential for wherever you buy, subdivisions that didn’t used to flood now flood easily as developments are being built so fast they overwhelm the drainage system, and the truth is if you build in a swamp don’t be surprised if you flood, but that’s becoming common and I don’t believe the people moving in know that flooding is a concern because that’s new to them.

The purpose of a turbo is to increase charge density of course, but you also increase charge density by cooling, so the effect of an inter cooler is very similar to an increase in boost, except of course there is a point of diminishing returns by just increasing boost, because compression adds heat and you get to a point that your adding so much heat that even with higher pressure you lose density. So long story short, an inter cooler will increase performance under most conditions, especially steady state like aircraft fly but remember it takes fuel to make HP, so if everything else is the same, fuel burn will increase with the HP. TANSTAAFL We can draw similarities with Autos, but Auto’s we run lots of boost to significantly increase HP, and an auto turbo can increase efficiency by utilizing otherwise waste heat. But aircraft we aren’t so much running high boost as we are maintaining HP as air density decreases and as we aren’t really running much boost there isn’t enough efficiency increase to overcome the decrease in efficiency from lower compression ratio. Compared to an auto at 10 PSI or more boost 40” MP is not much. My motorhome Diesel regularly runs 30 or more PSI and that’s what pushing 100” MP for example?

The redline on most aircraft engines usually isn’t an engine redline, but a prop redline, and even then it’s almost never a structural limit, it’s usually a noise limit. Usually, I’m sure there are exceptions, there always are. Now it IS a limit and therefore we have to obey it of course. Very often the Redline is a way for the engine manufacturer to limit the engine HP, for example the 235 IO-540 redline is 2400 because that’s 235 HP while the lower compression carbureted O-540 is I think 2600 because that’s where 235 HP occurs. Then in most cases it’s a continuous limit too, whereas in say automobile engines for example it’s rarely a continuous limit. The IO-520 in the C-210 I had was allowed to turn 2850 and make 300 HP, for 5 min, it was an exception to the rule, continuous limit was 2700. I’m pretty sure it couldn’t be Certified that way now because it was noisy at 2850. I’m also pretty sure the 5 min limit was due to heat build up, not a structural engine limit. Increase HP and of course you do that by increasing heat, if you exceed the cooling systems capacity then of course you can’t do that for long. But anyway we shouldn’t think of our aircraft engines redline in the same we we do our cars or motorcycles, those are usually actual engine structural and or heat limits and you can’t hold redline for long before something bad happens, where the average airplane can hold redline continuously.

It does, but if one owns their own hangar and has room for two, a simple airplane really isn’t that expensive to own. I don’t remember what I paid for my 140 20 years or so ago, I think about 12K or about the same as an average used car back then, but it has cost nearly nothing to maintain as it’s just a simple carbureted lawnmower engine that’s as easy as it gets to work on, runs on car gas etc. I should overhaul the cylinders as I have high oil temp that’s from blow by I’m pretty sure, but it’s been that way for all of those 20 years, I’ll get around to it eventually It’s not a traveling machine, but for those that have those big expensive fast Mooney’s you’re missing out on some really good local fly ins to grass strips etc. or just flying around one late Summer afternoon with the window open and your arm on the window sill. It’s the complete opposite to those that want fancy glass to entertain themselves with, it’s simple stick and rudder flying, great for spins etc. From what I have heard my 140 is worth now it’s pretty much doubled in value meaning that I won’t really make money if I sold it but that I would have owned and enjoyed it for the last 20 years essentially for free, plus it’s not in danger of being legislated into non existence as it burns car gas and believe it or not but every part is readily available, even large airframe parts inexpensively, no little $3,0000 springs. There is a lot to be said for having a simple inexpensive airplane. As I continue to grow older one day of course I’ll sell the Mooney, but I plan on keeping the 140 until I can’t get in and out of it

Ref poor torque for a Wankel. Mazda fixed that on the four rotor motor in the 787 by having variable length intake tubes. In fact it ended up having about the flattest torque curve of any race motor. https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a36062874/mazda-787b-r26-variable-length-intake/

With no disrespect, but I think the original poster needs to understand leaning a little better than it seems he does before he just starts leaning it out a lot more. I could of course be wrong, it just seems he may not have a good understanding You can hurt an engine at high power with the mixture knob, hurt badly if improperly done. I would advise as a min to learn the average peak, I know it changes from day to day but it’s usually pretty close, once you know what it is be sure not not lean less than 100F ROP, 150 isn’t a bad number actually during high power ops like T/O and climb, then watch Cyl head temp while climbing at least 100 kts indicated, if it climbs above 400 enrichen the mixture to get it down if it won’t come down more than likely you have a baffling problem that needs fixing. Don’t climb at Vx or Vy especially if it’s getting hot, our cooling comes from airflow of course and higher air speeds increase cooling, obviously. A plug will not foul at high power even if very rich. It can foul if low power and real rich though, a plug runs hotter at high power of course Once you’re at cruise and below 75% power, now is the time to lean the snot out of it, personally I lean it to 50 or so lower than peak, so leaner than peak, but ROP is fine too, even peak if not high power is fine. Usually to hurt a motor you need to be close to peak, have hot as in more than 400F cylinder heads and high power, remove any of those three and it’s unlikely you will hurt one. Without knowing anything about your airplane, you or your engine I can’t say for sure but your hot heads sound like to me that your climbing slow and or possibly leaner than optimum for climb power, or both, or arguably not lean enough although that’s graduate level mixture control in my opinion. If your not real sure most conservative response is be rich, rich enough that your sure your real rich when at T/O and climb power.

I would expect it to get worse if it cleaned out gunk from the oil ring

I think you’re right about the taxes, but as you say I’d call because they contradict themselves. For instance if your a resident of fl and are basing your aircraft out of State the you can fly into Fl for repairs /training does not apply to you. One flight and they say you owe taxes.

I’m going to have to see if mine builds pressure a second time, I can see the logic if it’s refilling with fuel it should as that little bit of fuel flow and 10 sec or so hasn’t cooled much of anything. As far as fuel in the cylinders it doesn’t hurt anything, nearly every other engine gets shut off with ignition, except aircraft.

? I would say the opposite most aviation piston engines are direct drive which means they have to be low RPM, reduction gearboxes bring in a whole extra layer of complexity and weight but are necessary to run higher engine RPM. I don’t know why belts haven’t been done and before anyone says that’s nuts, there are quite a few helicopters that are belt driven, and have been for decades, but I prefer direct drive. I believe a clean sheet aviation engine would have to have a least water cooled heads, that would allow car gas. Kawasaki was I think the first pent roof combustion chamber bike and they couldn’t pull off the four valve head without water cooling, so I believe that means it’s not doable, probably. I don't understand the drive for a Jet-A diesel as opposed to a spark ignition motor running car gas? Military maybe? I know they went to one fuel long ago and Companies have striven to produce products that can burn Jet-A, both Lycoming and Mercury Marine have produced spark ignition engines that can burn Jet-A for them as opposed to building Diesels, so maybe there is Government money available for Diesels?

I know, looked what happened with the RX-8 though, for automobiles I’m afraid it’s dead, as are Diesels in my opinion, yes you can make Diesels pass emissions, but it’s really, really tough and expensive. It really wouldn’t be hard to make an aircraft engine run off of car gas which is I think our biggest problem, all it would take is a modern combustion chamber, that’s why cars now can run higher compression than our aircraft engines on low octane gas, but the money to build and Certify there is no payback apparently. One advantage of a Wankel is that it can tolerate very low octane fuel without detonating, due apparently to the lack of valves. However a Wankel just isn’t nearly as thermally efficient as a reciprocating engine and there just isn’t a way around that. However the RX-8 required Premium and the engine just didn’t last often only about 60K miles, I assume but don’t know that Mazda had to run it very lean and hot to pass emissions, but they couldn’t make it pass newer emission standards and it died. Many people pre-mix fuel and oil in the RX-8 to try to make the engine last longer, Pretty sure it’s for the apex seals which has always been the achilles heel for Wankel’s, but run them hot and it kills seals. I like Wankel’s, they can be real hot rods, the turbo RX-7 made over 250 HP in stock trim with a roughly 80 cu in engine, and they are nearly turbine smooth as it simply spins and doesn’t recpriocate, but also a piston engine gets one power pulse for every 720 degrees of rotation per cylinder but a Wankel gets e power pulses per revolution so six times as many as a piston engine. ‘I think they would make a great aircraft engine, even the shape of a Wankel lends itself to aircraft.

Mine will build pressure, it’s easy to check just turn the Master on after engine has been off for 10 min or so, if it’s building pressure it will pin the pressure on the gauge What I do is after shutdown is I push mixture in with the Master still on, pressure quickly goes to zero, pull mixture fully out again and turn Master off. I also always leave keys on instrument panel except when I’m away, then they go in my pocket. Two weeks ago, the day after I did his condition inspection on his Pitts, a neighbor got hit in the back of his neck by the prop, he apparently moved it and one or both mags were hot. It would have killed him the Dr said if his neck hadn’t been fused with steel rods in it, but he was hospitalized for several days, hot mags with any fuel in the cylinder are dangerous, and when I push the mixture in to bleed off the pressure some fuel is going into one or more cylinders probably not much, but maybe enough if the mags are hot to kill you.

I would do that anyway, even if Lycoming had them stacked up. The 500 hr Gann “Performance” engine is why I bought my airplane, I overlooked the no glass, original interior and paint missing on the leading edges for that motor